Street Food

ARTICLES ABOUT STREET FOOD BY DATE - PAGE 2

"A lot of people think of crepes as fancy food," says Crêpe Town owner Julie Bartfield, who, with her chef-husband Mike, has been operating the stand in the Bellevue food court for a few months. "They are more like street food. Healthy, too. " Mike crisps the ethereal pancake to order, before layering in sweet or savory fillings. The Belgium chocolate-cherry is hard to resist. The crepe recipe was passed down to Mike from his great-grandfather. By spring, the Bartfields hope to be serving their treats in a second, street-level Center City shop.

Night Market, an evening street-food festival launched as an experiment in 2010 along a stretch of then newly popular East Passyunk Avenue, proved the wisdom of its ways last Thursday on Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy. "People are talking to each other as they wait in the lines at the food trucks," said Jim Villarreal, a local with his own cable show about dreams. "They're talking to people they never would have talked to in other circumstances," he marveled at the scene before him. They're all mixing and doing what Mount Airy is all about.

Most prepackaged falafel taste more like cardboard than like the authentic version of this Middle Eastern street food. But these from Falafel Republic are surprisingly fluffy and delicious, made of mashed chickpeas, fava beans, onions, and spices. Just zap them in the microwave and add your own tzatziki sauce. Vegan and gluten-free. Cherries in chocolate John & Kira's chocolates return to the local farmers markets after a respite from the heat. Among the new offerings in their new fall line-up are these: a dried, tart cherry, enveloped in Valrhona dark chocolate with a touch of brandy.

As niches in the local food world go, the current demand for the Japanese street food takoyaki is as small as the takoyaki itself. It's a petite delicacy: a globe-shaped puff of pancake batter about the size of a golf ball. But Nicole Igarashi and her Tokyo-born husband-chef, Ryo, already knew the power of this treat before they opened their quirky Japanese street-food storefront dedicated to variations on the genre in February. A great takoyaki - its crust a delicate crisp, its center a melty core of savory batter scented with dashi, mountain yam, pickled ginger, and a chewy morsel of your choice (octopus is traditional)

When I think of the most memorable foods I have tasted around the globe, it's not the decadent, multicourse, four-hour dinner in a Michelin-starred Paris restaurant I dream about - it's the perfectly tender crepe, sparingly graced with cinnamon and sugar and just enough sweet butter to melt it into a slick of caramel, that I bought from a street vendor in the 7th Arrondissment for 1 euro. I long for the charred, sweet and salty aroma and flavor of the just-plucked-from-the-sea lobster, grilled with chiles and lime and tucked into a fresh corn tortilla with a few slices of avocado and crema, that I ate on a beach in Mexico.

The week of Feb. 1 marks the opening of Maru Global (255 S. 10th St., 267-273-0567), Philadelphia's first quick-serve eatery focused on takoyaki, the puffy, fried crepe balls. The Japanese street food is traditionally studded with octopus, but Tokyo-born chef Ryo Igarashi and his wife, Nicole, both local restaurant veterans, are offering multiple varieties, including Philly cheesesteak, pizza, spicy shrimp, barbecue, and sweet-and-sour miso. The original, based on scallion and red ginger, can be made to order with shrimp, chicken, sirloin, or octopus.

There was so much syrupy hoisin and sweet sauce streaked across my first dinner at Kong - Northern Liberties' new ode to Hong Kong street food - that it was pretty clear Michael O'Halloran's "authenticator" wasn't having the desired effect. That's a tough spot to put your Chinese mother-in-law in ("authenticator," that is), especially when you and your team of chefs plan to stray as perilously far from the familiar as Kong's kitchen does. But that is exactly the role to which his wife's mother, Suet Ping Chiu, has been elected, the resident expert to lend O'Halloran's wide-ranging menu of dumplings, bar snacks, and noodle soups a little Hong Kong street cred.

The food trucks that stretch along 38th Street near the western edge of Penn's campus provide an antidote to - no, make that a repudiation of - the sad-sack food-court fare that lurks in greasy shame just blocks to the east. Between Chestnut and Spruce Streets you will encounter, in no particular order, trucks offering soba noodles and bright, fresh-made chicken tacos, a deal at $2 apiece - un-Taco Bell tacos. There are speed bumps of baba ganoush (and feta) and Yue Kee's celebrated - long-lined - Chinese window besting a fair number of Chinatown's own lunch spots, and cheerily advertising proprietarily spelled ma paul tofu . And so on. A Queen of Steaks.

If you are a movie buff, you've probably seen the 1933 black-and-white classic version of "King Kong" with Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong. And there's the successful and flashy 2005 remake with Naomi Watts and Jack Black. Michael O'Halloran, chef/owner of Old City's well-regarded Bistro 7, brings "King Kong" to mind in the fun name of his newly debuted Northern Liberties restaurant, Kong. O'Halloran and his wife and partner, Sophia Lee, wanted to create a restaurant inspired by the Chinese street food of Hong Kong that is part of Lee's heritage.

If you are a movie buff, you've probably seen the 1933 black-and-white classic version of "King Kong" with Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong. And there's the successful and flashy 2005 remake with Naomi Watts and Jack Black. Michael O'Halloran, chef/owner of Old City's well-regarded Bistro 7, brings "King Kong" to mind in the fun name of his newly debuted Northern Liberties restaurant, Kong. O'Halloran and his wife and partner, Sophia Lee, wanted to create a restaurant inspired by the Chinese street food of Hong Kong that is part of Lee's heritage.